Charles Schwab (SCHW) Acquires OptionsXpress for $1 Billion

Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) announced it will acquire online brokerage services provider OptionsXpress for $1 billion.

Terms of the deal are OptionsXpress (NASDAQ:OXPS) shareholders will receive 1.02 shares of Schwab stock for each share of OptionsXpress share. Based on the closing price of Schwab's on Friday of $17.91, the transaction is valued at $1 billion.

OptionsXpress Holdings Inc., based in Chicago, provides brokerage services for equity options and futures trading. As of the end of February, the company had 385,200 client accounts and $8.1 billion in client assets.

Charles Schwab Corp. had close to $1.6 trillion in client assets at the end of the same period.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

OptionsXpress Holdings, Inc. was trading at $17.65, gaining $2.32, or 15.13 percent, as of 11:41 AM EDT. Schwab was trading at $17.40, down $0.16, or 0.91 percent.